Amélie Simone Mauresmo (French pronunciation: [ameli simɔn moʁɛsmo]; born 5 July 1979) is a French former professional tennis player, tennis coach, and tournament director. She was ranked as the world No. 1 in women's singles by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) for 39 weeks. Mauresmo won 25 WTA Tour-level singles titles, including two majors, at the 2006 Australian Open and the 2006 Wimbledon Championships, as well as the 2005 WTA Tour Championships. She also won an Olympic silver medal in singles at the 2004 Athens Olympics. Mauresmo was known for her powerful one-handed backhand and strong net play.
Mauresmo officially announced her retirement from professional tennis on 3 December 2009, ending a career of 15 years. The following year, she started her coaching career, covering both WTA and ATP players, including ATP world No. 1 Andy Murray. She was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 2015. In 2021, Mauresmo was named the director of the French Open.
Mauresmo was born in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, slightly northwest of Paris. She began playing tennis at the age of four, after being inspired by Yannick Noah's win in the 1983 French Open on television. It was after his win that Mauresmo's parents bought her her first tennis racket. In 1998 Noah picked her on the French team for the Fed Cup. Her mother Françoise is a housewife and her father Francis, who died in March 2004, was an engineer. She has a brother, Fabien, who is an engineer.
In 1996, Mauresmo won both the junior French Open and Wimbledon singles titles. She was later named 1996 Junior World Champion by the International Tennis Federation.
The unseeded Mauresmo reached the Australian Open final in 1999 with wins over three seeded players, including world No. 1, Lindsay Davenport, before falling to world No. 2, Martina Hingis. Mauresmo was only the second Frenchwoman ever to reach the Australian Open final; (Mary Pierce was the first, winning the championship in 1995). She was only the third Frenchwoman to reach any Grand Slam final during the Open Era.
Mauresmo defeated Hingis later in the year, en route to the final of the Paris indoor event.
2004: Olympic silver, world No. 1
Mauresmo reached the semifinals at Wimbledon, where she lost to Serena Williams in three sets after winning the first set and up a break in the second set. She reached the quarterfinals of the three other Grand Slam tournaments and won three Tier I titles in Rome, Berlin, and Montreal.
Mauresmo won a silver medal in singles at the Olympic Games in Athens, where she was defeated by Justine Henin in the final.
On 13 September 2004, Mauresmo became the first French tennis player to become world No. 1 since the computer rankings began in the 1970s. She held that ranking for five weeks and was the second woman, after Kim Clijsters, to have attained the top spot without having won a Grand Slam title.
2005: WTA Tour Championships crown
Mauresmo reached the quarterfinals of the Australian Open, but was defeated there by eventual champion Serena Williams.
At the French Open, seeded third, Mauresmo was upset in the third round by the then little-known 17-year-old Ana Ivanovic, in three sets. Mauresmo had, at the Australian Open earlier in the year, become the first player to defeat the Serb in the main draw of a Grand Slam tournament, winning in straight sets also in the third round.
At the US Open, Mauresmo lost in the quarterfinals to Mary Pierce, in straight sets. That followed a semifinal loss to Lindsay Davenport at Wimbledon.
Mauresmo claimed her first singles title at the WTA Tour Championships. She defeated Pierce in the final after losing to Pierce in a round-robin match at that tournament, in three sets.
2006: Two Grand Slam titles, back to No. 1
At the Australian Open, Mauresmo captured her first Grand Slam singles title, defeating Belgian former world No. 1 players, Kim Clijsters and Justine Henin, en route. Both opponents retired from their respective matches, Clijsters with a right ankle sprain in the third set of their semifinal and Henin from gastroenteritis in the final. Mauresmo was leading in both matches at the time of the retirements, by 6–1, 2–0 against Henin.
Mauresmo then won her next two tournaments, the Open Gaz de France tournament in Paris (defeating Mary Pierce in the final) and the Proximus Diamond Games in Antwerp, Belgium (defeating Clijsters in the final).